Using the clipboard in a function

Question

How can I use the content of the clipboard in a function?

When I use Paste[] it copies it in the current cell of the active notebook. On the other hand, I can easily put an expression to the clipboard using CopyToClipboard[expr].

Answer 1

You could try using ClipboardNotebook[]

In[1]:= CopyToClipboard[expression]

In[2]:= an[ToExpression[NotebookGet[ClipboardNotebook[]][[1, 1, 1]]]]

Out[2]= an[expression]

Although you should probably be more careful with it than I have been in the above code. See for example Szabolcs' Mathematica tricks.